


falling forward

by CuddleFuddle



Series: kink meme fills [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Gore, I can't help myself I'm sorry, Pre-Slash, self injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 11:51:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuddleFuddle/pseuds/CuddleFuddle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bertholdt occasionally goes through episodes of extreme self-hate over the things he's done as a titan. Reiner / Annie / Both walk in on Bertholdt in an extreme self harm situation.</p>
<p>I'm looking for self vivisection / evisceration, followed by everyone trying to make Bertholdt feel better. It'd be a play on the fact that the titans can heal / regenerate.</p>
<p>+ Annie or Reiner helps Bertholdt stitch himself up</p>
<p>+ Bertholdt cries a lot</p>
            </blockquote>





	falling forward

**Author's Note:**

> I'm... really not sure about the anatomy here? Because it's surprisingly hard to google things like "can you cut your own larynx out" so if there's anything that's glaringly awful, please, _please_ let me know and I'll fix it. Original prompt can be found here: http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/2848.html?thread=3644960#cmt3644960

He starts small.

One of the benefits of surviving long enough to graduate is that trainees start getting rest days – only one per month, but highly anticipated nonetheless. The barracks is virtually empty, with most of the 104th off celebrating their impending graduation.

It’s a small mercy, Bertholdt thinks, because last month Connie had stayed back sick and Bertholdt hadn’t been able to mess himself up the way he wanted to. If he hadn’t been able to do it today, he’s not sure what would’ve happened.

Probably something awful. After all, he’s a monster. And monsters do awful things.

He cuts out his tongue first as is habit, tears streaming down his face, nose running and disgusting. He hasn’t quite outgrown his habit of screaming and he doesn’t want to get caught. It’s disgusting, and it makes him want to wretch every single time. He holds the organ in his hands, feeling the dry rasp of taste buds on his sweaty hands and he hates it. It’s not like he can just throw it out the window. He’ll have to cut it up, until it’s nothing more than strips of flesh, and then bury it somewhere. For now, he sets it beside him, and when it’s out of the way, he puts his knife to his throat and slices, straight through to his larynx. It hurts and he has to be careful not to bleed out; he cuts a strip of blanket and ties it neatly round his throat like a scarf. It doesn’t do much to slow the blood flow, but it’ll make do, and it’s not likely that Bertholdt had severed an artery.

He tests himself carefully, pleased when all he can make are raspy bubbly sounds that surely won’t call any attention to him.

Reiner and Annie are gone too, and that’s what hurts more than anything Bertholt could do to himself. Because maybe the 104th are their friends, yeah, but Bertholt is supposed to be their friend too.

When they’d infiltrated the walls he’d thought they’d stick together, if not the three of them, then at least he and Reiner, standing alone against the world. In retrospect, that was too naïve, far too naïve because Reiner has always been like this – warm and kind and supportive. It’s just that Bertholt used to think that it was because he was special, that somehow Bertholt brought those traits out in him.

He knows better now.

It’s with these thoughts that he begins. He always starts with his sternum; he likes the artistry of it. A monster cutting out his own heart. Although Bertholt’s never actually taken his heart out (maybe one day when he’s bored with the usual, but today he has other plans), he does enjoy the sensation of blood pushing its way out and through the wound, spurting down his chest and making a mess all over the blankets. He’ll have to dispose of them later of course, along with whatever’s left of his tongue. For now he won’t worry about it.

The pain is incredible and Bertholt’s head pounds with the feel of it. His blood is thrumming. He feels alive, more alive than he’s felt in months.

Today’s going to be a good day.

He has to wait a little for the blood to stop flowing as urgently. When there’s too much of it, it makes his blade slippery and inefficient.  He uses the blankets to sop up the mess, keeping an eye on the sky outside. He needs at least two hours of clean up, three if he continues like this. There’s still enough time, but only if he’s quick about it.

With the blade positioned over his belly, Bertholt lets his mind wander. What would he do if someone came back early and saw him like this? Even if he heard them coming, he wouldn’t be able to patch himself up in time. He’d have to kill them.

He continues the fantasy as he drives the knife through the layers of skin and muscle, separating his organs from the cramped, coppery air of the barracks. He imagines what it would be like to kill Connie, stumbling home with another stomach ache, Connie who was kind to him when he didn’t go out with Reiner last month, Connie who would be horrified to walk in on Bertholt like this – seemingly dead – who would approach him with concern, confused and trying not to vomit at the carnage. He wouldn’t even suspect that it was a trap, that Bertholt was feigning dead to murder him. It makes Bertholt’s insides twist with nausea. Isn’t this what he’s supposed to want? To kill humans, to break down the walls, to be a warrior?

But imagining Connie, eyes glazed over, bleeding out from a wound in his neck (the most efficient place to stab him; he won’t be able to scream through the bubble of blood) makes him want to cry.

His shoulders are shaking. He’s always bad at this part, the first few slices as he tries to get through to his intestines. His nerves are screaming with unbearable pain. It’s a force of will to not start healing then, to not give in to the self-preservation instinct that tells him to stop while he’s ahead. He’s trembling like a leaf, and it’s only familiarity that keeps him from throwing up as he finds the first tug of intestines. It feels like slimy rope, stronger than it looks. He takes hold and pulls.

It’s at this moment that Reiner and Annie walk in, viscera half hanging out of him onto the sheets.

There’s a moment of panic – Bertholt hadn’t heard them until it was too late, and he’d startled, expecting someone from the 104th, expecting to have to kill like the monster he is and –

“Shit,” Reiner curses as he walks through the doorway, and then, “Bertholt?”

Annie stands behind him, wordless, nose scrunched against the smell. Reiner looks disgusted, like he might wretch, and all Bertholt can think of is to _run_ as fast and as far as he can. He can’t, of course, not yet (although the image of him tripping over half-exposed intestines makes him laugh out loud, gurgling noises that have Reiner and Annie looking alarmed) so he lets himself start the healing process instead.

“Bertl,” Reiner tries again, taking a step forward. The steam rolling off Bertholt is hot and thick, hopefully enough to deter Reiner from getting any closer.

“Did you do this yourself?”

He doesn’t answer; of course he doesn’t answer, with his heart in his throat and his tongue on the bed sheets. He takes comfort in the feel of flesh knitting itself together. Usually it feels like taking care of himself, the one time that Bertholt can relax and feel needed, valued, cared for. But with Reiner and Annie watching him with looks of horror and anger on their faces, he can’t feel good about it. His eyes are welling with tears, which is stupid, stupid, like Reiner and Annie needed any other reason to hate him.

“We were worried,” Annie says by way of explanation, and to her credit she sits next to him despite the steam and the gory blankets. “Is this why you always stay back?”

Again he remains silent; his vocal cords haven’t quite finished healing and besides, he doesn’t want to say anything anyways. Annie sighs, quiet and steady, and puts her hand on his shoulder.

“Do you really feel that badly about yourself?”

Leave it to Annie to cut to the quick; Bertholt shrugs beneath her, eyes closed. It’s an effort for him to not start crying, and for a moment they sit there in awkward silence.

“Doesn’t it hurt Bertl?”

“Yeah,” he says, hating the way his healing voice rasps. “Yeah, it does.”

“Is it what Annie said?” Reiner demands, and Bertholt shrugs again.

“Fuck.” Reiner’s voice is little more than a hiss, sounding more stained than Bertholt has ever heard it sound. “Don’t shut me out.”

“Reiner,” Annie warns, and he falls silent. Her hand tightens on Bertholt’s shoulder. “You can’t heal all of that in one go. I’ll get a first aid kit.”

He doesn’t have to ask how she’ll get it. Annie is always resourceful and quiet on her feet. He doesn’t want her to go; he doesn’t want to be alone with Reiner.

As soon as she’s out the door, Reiner sits in her place, weight making the bed groan.

“Talk to me Bertl. I don’t understand.”

“It’s nothing really,” Bertholdt says, toying with the ends of his blanket-scarf. Reiner frowns at it. “You shouldn’t worry.”

“ _Don’t_. This isn’t like when we were kids.”

“I know.” Bertholt stares at his hands, feeling small. There’s still blood under his nails, rusty crescent moons that he picks at halfheartedly.

“So then why aren’t you saying anything?”

“I don’t want to be a burden.”

Reiner sighs, audibly frustrated and Bertholt can’t help but bury his face in his hands. He feels like an idiot, letting Reiner and Annie see this side of him.

“You’re so stubborn, it’s impossible to help you.”

“I’m sorry.”

Reiner’s face twists, and for a frightening moment Bertholdt thinks that Reiner will hit him. Instead he sighs again, loud and angry.

Annie walks in then, box in hand. She gives Reiner a look, but he doesn’t move. He grips Bertholdt’s hand instead, and Bertholdt jerks from the shock of it.

Neither of them let go.

Annie kneels in front of him. The steam has lessened now; his throat is mostly healed, the wound on his sternum is shallow, and his abdomen has a cautious layer of muscle boxing in his newly-formed intestines. The old ones hand like dirty cords from his still open wound. Bertholdt cuts through them wordlessly; Reiner flinches, but doesn’t let go of his hand. Annie looks unimpressed.

“This will hurt,” she tells him, rummaging through the box for a needle and thread. Bertholdt doesn’t know where she’s learned to do this – they’ve never needed to, but she sits in front of him with practiced patience, pinching together the edges of his cuts as best she can.

It does hurt, in an uncomfortable prickling way. It’s nowhere near the pain of the initial injury, but Bertholdt finds himself sweating and tense nonetheless. The wound on his sternum is easily stitched shut; Annie ties the thread off and cuts it free. He can see it contrasting white against his skin, six sharp v’s scissoring across his wound.

“Catgut,” Annie tells him and Bertholdt blanches.

“Cats?”

“Not _actual_ cats,” Annie sighs, long-suffering, and it’s so _normal_ , so painfully normal that Bertholdt laughs even though it hurts still. She gives him a look like he’s gone insane, and that’s normal too.

“Thank you,” he tells her as she begins to work on his abdomen. She shrugs at him and jabs the needle in; he stiffens and squeezes Reiner’s hand

“Promise me you won’t do it again,” Reiner says in a no-nonsense tone.

“I can’t.”

He feels rather than hears Reiner’s sigh, and he tenses, expecting a reprimand.

“Can you try?”

Bertholdt considers. Considers the way Reiner is holding his hand, shoulder brushing against him, considers the way that Annie is kneeling on the hard wooden floor, ignoring the bloodied bed and stitching him up like it’s okay, like he hurt himself falling out of a tree. The way she doesn’t press him to talk when Reiner does, the way Reiner provides solid support when she sees through to the heart of his issues.

“You guys really…” he stops, feeling a lump in his throat. Reiner runs his fingers over Bertholdt’s knuckles, and Bertholdt shivers. Annie gives him a look that clearly says _stop moving, idiot_ and Bertholdt feels himself break out into a grin.

“Yeah, I can try.”

Reiner bumps his head against Bertholdt’s, and Annie hums approvingly in the back of her throat.

“Reiner, stop fussing and get these blankets out of here. We don’t know when they’ll come back.”

“Roger,” Reiner says with a mock-salute, letting go of Bertholdt’s hand. Bertholdt’s disappointment must show on his face, because Reiner squeezes his shoulder in response, hand lingering for just a beat longer than normal and Bertholdt feels something warm spread throughout his chest.

And for now, that’s enough.


End file.
